Sunday, August 18, 2013

YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND ME

The movie starred Mel Gibson and
Helen Hunt. My wife and I loved it. “What Women Want” is a very enjoyable
romantic comedy about a male chauvinist pig who can, all of a sudden, hear what
women are thinking. It also caused Laura and me to do some thinking about the
battle of the genders. So far there is no clear winner, but women seem to be
ahead on points…at least that’s what they’d like us to believe.

Now before any feminine hackles
start to rise, let me say that I’d like to see women win the fight, especially
if they could do it in the next thirty seconds or so. I’m sick and tired of it
all. I would readily admit defeat just to stop all the carnage, but
unfortunately, my personal surrender would have no effect on the battle as a
whole. I’d break ranks and run away, but that’s tough to do when you’re
surrounded. I’ve tried screaming “Please don’t hurt me, I give up!” but the
noise of the American Women’s Battle Cry drowns out my feeble shout. You know
it. Many of you even utter it from time to time.

“Men just don’t understand
us!”

Ladies, you’re right. We don’t. We
absolutely, positively, do not understand women. The statement is a generality
that is completely correct, as long as it is not applied to specifics. When it
is applied to specifics, it is as absurd as any other sexist, racist, hateful
utterance on the planet. Tell me men don’t understand women all day long, I
have no problem. But if you tell me that I do not understand women because I am
a man, smile.

Even though I freely admit my guilt
and complicity in the ongoing conflict, there are some double standards that
irk me a bit. If a woman says “my husband just doesn’t understand me”, the rest
of us, male and female alike, are supposed to look at her sympathetically and
say “aaawwww”. If a man says “my wife just doesn’t understand me”, the rest of
us look around for the poor, unsuspecting barfly he’s saying it to. Which
brings me to another point. Be advised, I’m using the term “I” in the broadest
possible sense, as a generality applying to men as a group, not to any specific
man.

If it is true that men are from Mars
and women are from Venus, then women are not from Venus and Mars. If I do not
understand you because we are from different planets, what the hell makes you
think you have such a firm grip on what makes me tick? Answer: You don’t.Difference? I don’t expect you to understand
me, and when you don’t, I don’t worry my pretty little head about it.

There is a great deal of psychobabble
out there on how little boys are programmed to be warlike, sidewalk-spitting,
crotch-clutching, beetle-browed clods, and more than a little of it is true.
Little girls are programmed, too. They are taught to keep some mystery in a
relationship, to not give too much of themselves, emotionally or physically,
away. They are also taught that they will have to suffer in one way or another
at the hands and will of men. Then they are given various visions of prince
charming, or vine covered cottages, or perfect picket fences, and told to
aspire to them. Women have been taught fear and fantasy. Just like the guys,
gals, you bought into the bull. We have all been misled, all of us. Let me say
that again. ALL OF US.

We have had stereotypes thrown at us
from earliest memory, and our internal computers were programmed, whether we
liked it or not, by generation after generation of people whose only
qualification to be parents was the fact that somebody could get somebody else
pregnant. We are, for the most part, composites of what we have been told we
should be, what we have emulated from experience, or what we have run from
because of fear. Even in our overreactions to sex, ours or somebody else’s, we
are not consistent. Homosexual men, for the most part, get along with women
fine, even love them dearly. Homosexual women are often antagonistic to men,
especially those who strive so hard to appear male themselves.

Let’s get back to the original
question. What do women want? I don’t know, and neither do most women, for the
very reasons I mentioned earlier. I suspect, in their heart of hearts, it’s
much simpler than we have been led to believe. Fortunately, in my life, I have
enjoyed association with a number of remarkable women, and what they seemed to
most desire is also what most men want, when all the B.S. is scraped away.
Love. Men and women don’t have to understand each other to love each other.
Parents don’t need to understand their children, or children their parents.
Love soars above all that.It’s up to us
to stop pointing fingers and making demands, and realize that while men may
never understand women, and women may never understand men, a person can at
least come close to understanding another person, even if one is male and the
other female. When the generalities are dropped, it ain’t them against us any
more. It’s just the two of you, each with the with the standard issue BS that
comes with the respective gender, and each with plenty of love to go around
once fear gets out of the way. It’s all part of a plan that we understand even less
than we understand each other.

About Me

A cop, artist, musician, firearms instructor, fishing guide, public speaker, ranch hand, radio personality and novelist, David Lewis has seen life through many eyes and from many perspectives. From childhood on the banks of the Sangamon River to adulthood on a metropolitan police department, through hardscrabble years deep in the Ozark Mountains to working in broadcasting, David has gathered a wealth of life experience that is as evident in his words as it is on his face.